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Navegador

Ben brought a new game for us to play this week called Navegador. It says that this game is inspired by the Portuguese Age of Discoveries in the 15th-16th century. I didn’t realize the Portuguese had an age of discovery, but then I’m American. So what did those Portuguese do back in the 15th and 16th century? Apparently they contracted men, acquired ships and buildings, and sailed the seas. While on the seas they establish colonies in the discovered lands and traded the goods found there in the market. All this gained them certain privileges that gained them victory points. Ok, maybe they didn’t gain victory points, but we did. We each started with only two ships and three workers. From this we endeavored to expand our empire (and gain victory points.)

A couple of interesting things to note about the game: The market is where you sell goods from your colonies (driving the prices down). Your factories process the goods into marketable items (driving the prices up). Your clever use of factories and colonies can get you tons of money. Workers and ships are an integral part of the game—you must have them. As the game progresses they become very expensive unless you invest in buildings that lower their cost. This is another game where on your turn you have more things you want to do than you can do.

Ben had played this game a couple of times before and offered many helpful hints and suggestions…of which he followed none. Those of us who did follow them ended up somewhere at the bottom of the victory point totals. Score one for Ben’s insidious and crafty game playing. Oh, and he tried to cheat several times, But Mike called him on it. We love Ben. He’s so predictable…except when he’s being insidious and crafty. And even then, we should have known better.

My game started off fabulously well and I was soon rolling in the pazoozas, or whatever the Portuguese called their currency back in the 15th century. Owen and Mike went after colonies to score the big victory points. Ben and I cornered the sugar market and built factories.

Victory points are only scored at the end of the game. This makes it a little hard to judge just how well you are doing compared to everyone else. Especially since everyone else is most likely going after different ways to score points. As our game came to a close, Owen thought he had done poorly, but ended up being only 9 points off from the winner. Mike followed Ben’s suggestions from the beginning of the game and came in last. (What did we learn here?)

Ben won with 82 points. I came in second with 76 points. Owen had 73 points and Mike had 71.

We liked this game. Even with all of the pieces and options available on your turn, it’s a pretty easy game to pick up and play. Of course, learning the nuances of winning may take a little longer—especially if you listen to Ben.

Chaos Steve

Agents of Oblivion VIII: Into the Frying Pan

GM: Evil Mike, Cruel, Silver Tongued Devil
Samuel Smythe (Steve): Occult Branch, Polish National, the Healer & the Shooter
Balthazar Magnusson (Owen): Operations Branch, Swedish, The Lindquist/Forger & our Team Leader
Cyrus Lowenstein (Ben): Operations Branch, American, The Ladies Man & Tech Op
Nick Harmon (Mike): Occult Branch, American, (phony?) Combat Psychic & Thief

Over the last several weeks we’ve been witling down our list of need-to-do covert operations. This week it was finally time to begin the infiltration of the bio-weapons facility at Chernobyl in the Ukraine. Our mission was two-fold; steal a 3’ x 8’ box weighing around 220 pounds from an underground laboratory and “pollute” the facility’s research data by whatever means possible. (Lowenstein brought gasoline and baking soda.) As with all our missions we first started off with some information gathering.

Ben played an adventure card that gave us the lowdown on the facility and the surrounding area. Apparently the area was still highly radioactive and with rumors of mutated creatures wandering around. There was also a check point we had to pass through to get into Chernobyl. We spent a huge amount of time coming up with a plan to infiltrate the facility. Should we try to be official visitors? Should we try a high altitude midnight drop? Should Lowenstein be allowed to carry around a bunch of flammable liquid? All these questions and many others where asked and answered. In the end we went for the straight forward approach.

Using Lowenstein’s Tech Ops ability we obtained the name of the company regularly delivering supplies to the facility. Then Harmon, our thief, broke into the company and stole papers that Magnusson could forge so we could get pass the check point. He also stole a sizable amount of cash. I should mention that Harmon was a ghost during this assignment. I think he got a raise on just about every roll. He and Lowenstein also stole a truck from the company yard. They cut the lock to the fenced and drove the truck out into the night. When asked why they didn’t just break down the fence with the truck, Magnusson, our leader, was quoted as saying: “You want to know why? Because we’re professionals, that’s why!”

Magnusson’s forgeries were of the highest quality I’d ever seen. (And I saw the rolls to prove it.) Unfortunately the checkpoint guard was bored. Upon seeing my papers, he got suspicious and asked for further ID. My ID and a wad of stolen cash got me through the checkpoint just fine.

Magnusson managed to hit something on our way to facility. That something turned out to be a giant mutated Ukrainian snail—with acid slime. The slime was eating its way through our truck as we fired round after round into it. Magnusson tried to back away from it only to bump into its friend; a giant centipede. The battle was fierce, but we managed to kill both creatures and not ruin our truck.

Next time, we’ll be infiltrating the facility. That should go as smoothly as our other jobs. Why? Because we’re professionals.

Agent Smythe

Settlers of America: Trails to Rails

This week we played Settlers of America: Trails to Rails from the Catan series of games. This is one of my favorite Catan games. The reason? You can do something almost every turn.

I’m adopting the following text from BoardGameGeek because it does such a great job of capturing the flavor of the game. “Settlers of America: Trails to Rails utilizes the familiar Catan hex-tile grid to present a map of the United States. Players collect and trade resources, in order to purchase, migrate and build settlements, forge railroads and acquire locomotives. Railroads are used to distribute goods to the interconnected cities. As westward locations are settled, old sources of resources deplete. The addition of gold adds to the depth of play and increases options for the players.”

Playing time for Settlers of America is two hours. Our game took about three hours. We could all point fingers at the culprits (Ben, Owen, Mike) but that would be childish. We had a pretty close game the entire time. Looking at the board at any particular time you might think differently, but so much can change after a single turn. It’s not unusual for someone to go from dead-last to being a contender for the lead after their turn is over.

The game was winding down and Ben was setting himself up to deliver some more goods on his next go. Owen snuck in and stole those deliveries from him. Ben was speechless. (That’s only a saying. Ben probably talked up storm about how unfair Owen’s move was, but those words will be lost to history since I’m writing the account of it.) Now that move by Owen might not seem like a big deal, but we all think this was the one move that enabled Mike to win over Ben.

As the game ended, I was able to sneak into second place only because I had a stellar turn just before Mike’s game winning turn. Had Mike not delivered his last goods to win the game, Ben would of. That’s how close the game was. As it was Mike won. I came in second. Ben and Owen tied for third place, with Ben being last. (Yes, that last sentence was intentional.)

Chaos Steve

Agents of Oblivion VII: The Hanging Tree

GM: Evil Mike, Cruel, Silver Tongued Devil
Samuel Smythe (Steve): Occult Branch, Polish National, the Healer
Balthazar Magnusson (Owen): Operations Branch, Swedish, The Lindquist/Forger
Cyrus Lowenstein (Ben): Operations Branch, American, The Ladies Man
Nick Harmon (Mike): Occult Branch, American, Combat Psychic

We have a natural talent for ending previous sessions on critical failures. Last session was no exception as Agent Lowenstein critically failed his Stealth roll to sneak up on some…well we don’t know because Lowenstein’s com suddenly went silent.

“You in the church! Come out with your hands up or your friend here gets it in the head.”

We seriously considered staying in the church.

Agent Magnusson and I exited the church with our hands up. Meanwhile, Agent Harmon and Willow snuck out the back window and hid. Once out of the church we found Lowenstein, bound and gagged, and in the clutches of some robe wearing cultist fanatics. We were led into the graveyard behind the church. There by an ancient tree the cultists called the “hanging tree” we prepared to meet our fate. All three of us were now bound and kneeled, execution-style, in front of a cultist. These fanatics also carried wicked looking swords. “Where was Harmon and Willow?”

I made the first move. (My action card was a Joker!) Escaping from my bonds, I stood up. Uh, that was the end of my turn. (Yes, I know. Not very exciting, but escaping from professionally tied bonds is not as easy as I made it look; Just ask Lowenstein.) I believe Magnusson also got out of his bonds and turned on his executioner. Lowenstein did the best he could, bound. He took a pounding. The rest of us were dodging bullets and swords; trying to take down as many cultists as we could.

I saw Agent Harmon do the hand waving gesture that meant he was using he supposed physic powers. Nothing happened. Why doesn’t he just shoot them! Then I saw him pull his gun. Finally! The leader of this cult of fanatics was giving us a hard time. Apparently he was wearing some high-end super stealth suit because he vanished from sight. (I just notice that I’m starting to sound like a doubting Thomas, which I am not. I weld the mystic powers with the best of them. Just maybe this cult leader also had some magic as his disposal.)

We eventually dispatched the cultist fanatics. I healed Lowenstein of his wounds and, after a time, we cut him loose. We also finally got Willow to a safe drop-off point at the docks. A job well done…by most of us.

Next we have a little appointment with a biochemical plant located in Chernobyl. Sounds like a nice place.

Agent Smythe

Agents of Oblivion VI: Get Us to the Church On Time

GM: Evil Mike, Cruel, Silver Tongued Devil
Samuel Smythe (Steve): Occult Branch, Polish National, the Healer
Balthazar Magnusson (Owen): Operations Branch, Swedish, The Lindquist/Forger
Cyrus Lowenstein (Ben): Operations Branch, American, The Ladies
Man Nick Harmon (Mike): Occult Branch, American, Combat Psychic

We last left our intrepid agents just after they had entered a rundown Buddhist temple in Gdansk. It was dark and they had discovered they were not alone. It wasn’t the man bound and gagged on the alter that roused their suspicion. No, it was the drop dead gorgeous women lingering in the darkness.

4 hours ago…

Agent Harmon attempts to rejoin his Oblivion cell by parasailing into the city of Gdansk. He knew we would be heading for the Buddhist temple, so he headed there also. He arrived first. It was still daylight. He looked over the building using all of his Agency training. It seemed innocuous enough. It was dead quiet as he slipped into the darken temple. As he moved toward the center of the building, he caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye. And that’s when he realized he was not alone…

Back to the present…

Seeing the beautiful women caught us off guard momentarily. When we finally paid attention again to the bound form lying on floor, we realized it was Agent Harmon. Were the women somehow involved? Were they prisoners too? Could we possibly have dates for this Saturday night? All this went through our minds…along with a tugging notion that all is not as it seems. Our minds were right. One of the women transformed into a hideous demonic hag.

As I looked at the women near me, I paused. Was it the moonlight shimmering off her hair? Or her perfectly soft, creamy skin? Or maybe it was the womanly curves of her body that distracted me? No, I think it was rather my critical failure at this point that caused everything to go south for me. Seeing the demonic hag reveal her true self, I immediately moved to protect the woman near me. In return, she kissed me. I nearly died. Literally.

Lowenstein was sucking face with the other gorgeous babe seemly oblivious to his fate. I got a hold of myself and emptied a three-round burst into my “date”. She turned to ash. Then the battle began in earnest. I killed Lowenstein’s date, thus making us even. (It was he who got my date killed at the museum debacle.) The other two women became a real problem. We tried to stop them, but they got away. Agent Harmon even used his freaky physic powers to lift on of Lowenstein’s grenades and carried it to one of the creatures. His damage sucked. It lived.

No one had bothered to release Agent Harmon. Thankfully he paid attention during his Oblivion training (unlike Agent Lowenstein) and was able to untie himself. After establishing a perimeter and following all the proper procedures, we contacted Oblivion. We were ordered to sit tight with Willow until a team arrived to pick her up.

Lowenstein went outside to guard the perimeter. He was at the side of the temple when he heard a large vehicle moving in front of the church. Using his Oblivion training, he went into “stealth mode”. Lowenstein critically failed his Stealth roll. (I think he realized he skipped that Oblivion class as well.)

With a critical failure waiting to be resolved, we called it a night.

What could possibly go wrong?

Agent Smythe

 

Rush N’ Crush & Ivanhoe

This week we played Rush N’ Crush. I like racing games. I also like racing games where you can shoot at your opponents or ram them into walls. This is just such a game; although I found that most of the time I was the one being shot at or rammed.

First a quick note about the playing pieces. The track and the driver displays are first rate. The tokens and gear shift levers used on the driver display are clear tokens—nothing fancy, but workable. The dice are standard dice. The cars are crap. You get six cars in three different colors. The cars break apart into two pieces so it is possible to get six unique cars. The problem is that the cars break apart into two pieces…a lot…while playing the game. I’m replacing the six cars in the game with some extra cars I have for Formulae De.

Once you figure out how to decipher the driver display it’s pretty easy to play the game from then on. Rush N’ Crush has two playing modes: Arcade and Overdrive. We played the simpler Arcade mode. We also played with the track layout suggested in the Arcade rules.

All of our cars and drivers where tweaked a little differently. Mike made great use of the ramming and bumping options on his car. Owen and I raced around the track firing our machine guns and dropping land mines. Ben ran into things. Unfortunately it was usually not what he intended to hit. Going through a particular tight area of the track Ben tried to bump Mike into the wall. Ben failed and plowed into a wall nearly destroying his car.

Mike was the leader throughout most of the game with Ben and I trying to keep up with him. Owen ran a safer race in the hopes that we would destroy our cars. That strategy nearly worked. Mine and Ben’s cars where pretty beat-up by the time we came around the last turn. Ben had no steering, no brakes, and no armor left. I had no steering left. Steering is important in the game to get you around obstacles. Mike was still in the lead at this point and his car was in great shape. He crossed the finish line in style. The rest of us crossed the finish line as losers.

After the game was over I asked everyone what they thought of it. The all liked it better than Formula De. Maybe because has a good balance between racing/shooting/ramming fun and car/driver record keeping.

Next we had ice cream. Then we played Ivanhoe. You have to win four different tournaments to win the game. Ben came out and won three tournaments in a row. Having drained his hand of good cards, Mike and Owen began to win. I couldn’t win a tournament to save my life. Although honestly Jousting, Pole Axes, Swords, Morning Stars, or Fists(?) are not my best weapons. Owen eventually won and everyone called me an idiot for not playing the action card I had. I put up a stellar defense on my behalf, before diverting their attention and running from the room.

Chaos Steve

Agents Of Oblivion V: A Drive in the Country

GM: Evil Mike, Cruel, Silver Tongued Devil
Samuel Smythe (Steve): Occult Branch, Polish National, the Healer
Balthazar Magnusson (Owen): Operations Branch, Swedish, The Lindquist/Forger
Cyrus Lowenstein (Ben): Operations Branch, American, The Ladies Man
Nick Harmon (Mike): Occult Branch, American, Combat Psychic

Previously we had extracted a double-agent, named Willow, who was working for both the Chinese and the Russians. She had wanted to defect and we were in the right place at the right time to help her. Our handler, Mr. Myster, ordered us to escort her to a drop-off point in the city of Gdansk on the northern coast of Poland. Using the tech op at our disposal (Lowenstein) we discovered that someone, mostly likely the Russians, had planted a tracking device in Willow’s bra. We removed it and destroyed it. But now we knew that they knew that we knew…and they would be watching for us to transport her to somewhere safe.

Together, the brightest minds of the group (Lowenstein and Smythe) concocted a fiendish plan. After the “Giant Badger” plan failed, we went with plan B. This entailed driving into a tunnel where three look-a-like vehicles would emerge all traveling to different locations. This seemed to work for a while, until Agent Magnusson announced we were being followed. Willow had to visit the ladies room, so we stopped (again)—keeping a careful eye on the tailing car. It passed us by. Smythe escorted Willow to the ladies room. While waiting outside, Agent Smythe heard a commotion coming from inside. Agent Smythe burst in to the small bathroom to find Willow being pulled out through the window. His agency training took over and he lunged for her lithe, beautifully formed ankle. He must have been distracted by the ankle, because he missed. The next sound he heard was a car peeling out from behind the building.

Agents Lowenstein and Magnusson took off in hot pursuit of the car. Agent Smythe “borrowed” a car from a friendly lady at the gas station. Smythe wasn’t exactly sure if she gave him her car because of his charismatic charm or because of the machine pistol he was waving in her face. Anyway, Smythe joined the chase.

There were a couple of tense moments during the chase when both Lowenstein and Smythe critically failed their driving rolls. Agent Lowenstein plowed through several cars yet managed to get him, Agent Magnusson and the SUV out of it all unscathed. (Thanks to Lowenstein’s Ace edge that allowed him to soak the multiple wounds to the car.) Agent Smythe had no such edge. He had to depend upon the loving kindness of Evil Mike the GM…who told him to double the damage roll due to the critical failure. The GM ruled that agent’s Smythe’s car had hit a concrete barrier. Fortunately Smythe “Rolled a Mike”. That is, he rolled damage so low that doubling it only caused him to make a driving roll. Smythe survived.

During the chase Magnusson showed off his shooting prowess by taking out two tires on the lead car. But the kidnappers were the best of the best and were not going to let the loss of two tires stop them. Then Agent Smythe plowed his borrowed car into the back of their car. With the back of their car destroyed, they had no choice but to surrender. We required our package for delivery.

After a quick search, we left the kidnappers tied up in the trunk of their car and the trunk of the car Smythe borrowed.

It was dark when we reach Gdansk. Our orders were to drop Willow off at an old Buddhist temple. We found the temple in a rundown part of the city. We scoped it out using all of ours Agency taught skills. It seemed innocuous enough. As we slipped into the darken temple we could hear whimpering. As we moved closer, we saw men bound and gagged on the floor. And that’s when we noticed we were not alone…

Anonymous

JimCon 2012 Spring

Since people out there were clamoring for a JimCon write-up. I decided to do a quick wrap-up of what happened. (I say one person is a “clamor”.) But first a song sung to the tune of “The Piano Man”:

The GM Man

It’s nine o’clock on a Friday morn
the regular crowd shuffles in
There’s an old man sitting next to me
Makin’ changes to his character Trin
He says, son can run a game for me
I’m not really sure how it goes
But it’s got orcs and efreet and I knew it complete
When I wore a younger man’s clothes

[Chorus]
La la la de de da
la la de de da da dum
Play us your game, you’re the GM man
Play us your game tonight
Well, we’re all in the mood for a TPK
And you’ve got us ready to fight

This year the “usual crowd” was augmented by Bob Geiger. Our friend Bob got to come almost a whole day early to JimCon. (Yea!) Once everyone arrived and the cars were unloaded of games, we got down to actually playing one.

Evil Mike ran us through the four-hour version of the two-hour Savage Worlds demo he would be running at the big conventions this year. It’s called “Hell on Wheels”. And yes, it’s patterned after the TV show. I think we did ok; no deaths that I recall. We did help the evil one figure out what parts to keep for his two-hour version.

Next, we played History of the World, a JimCon favorite. Completely against all gaming protocols I did not write down who won. I can only guess it was me…and I won by a huge margin.

The movie of the night was Kick-Ass. I had never seen this one and I was completely surprised by it. I expected a typical super hero movie. Kick-Ass is not that.

Saturday is RPG day at JimCon, but before that all started Ben and I played a game called Battle Khaos. Ben played the paltry humans, while I took the orcs. Battle Khaos is a placement game of sorts where the object is to take over towers and score points for doing so. The orcs shutout the humans 7-0. Go Khaos!

The first Savage Worlds game of the day was Owen’s Weird War II game. Actually it isn’t Weird War II, but the real World War II with no weirdness. Our team of elite troops was assigned to recue some downed pilots. We did just that and my character, Boris, got promoted. (I don’t remember why.)

Then Evil Mike ran us through his star wars adventure. I don’t remember a single thing about it except that Ben briefly flirted with the light-side, before plunging back to the dark-side. A fantastic time was had by all. A very memorable game—probably Mike’s best to date.

That night we watched Sucker Punch. (Someone please explain this movie to me.)

Sunday morning a few of us played a game called Eminent Domain. Everyone else had played this before and I must say I was rather lost through the whole game. The other players did help me though, which is why I came in second with 19 points. Ben won with 21 points. Mike and Evil Mike tied for last with 17.

We spit up for the next few games, Ron, Bob, Jim and I played Deadwood. It’s similar to the game Carson City, but less complicated and, I think, a more fun. Ron’s Rowdies won the town with 21 points. Bob’s Buckaroos come in second with 17, Jim’s Jackalopes scored 16, and Steve’s Saddle Tramps came in so far last, with 5 points, it was embarrassing.

We then played Ra, the dice game. Ra is a great game for 2-4 players. Roll the dice. Determine your strategy for scoring points and mark you selections. It’s simple, but fun. Ron once again showed his superior game-playing skill and won with 48 points. Bob came in second with 35 points, I managed a third place showing with 34, and Jim came in last at 31.

Finally, we played the Monopoly Deal card game. This is a fun and fast version of Monopoly. (it’s strange writing “fast” and “monopoly” in the same sentence.) In this one, I finally fought my way to the top and won.

While we were playing through our three games, Evil Mike, Owen, Ben, and Mike were playing Steam. I’m sure their game wasn’t as fun as ours. Evil Mike won with 54 points. Ben and Owen tied for second with 41. Mike came in last with 29.

Next up was Lifeboat, an interesting card game that Bob brought. In it you play a character trying to survive on a lifeboat filled with others. One character you love; one character you hate. You get points for seeing the proper end for both of those characters. One nice touch; it’s possible to love and/or hate yourself. After a few fights, some characters falling overboard, shark attacks, and general pushing and shoving the lifeboat sighted land. Bob won with his character getting 21 points. I had 19 points. Ron had 16. Jim, whose character died during the trip, got 8 points, and Mike got 4 points. Please note that Jim’s character died and did better than Mike.

Lastly, we played Ivanhoe, a great card game by Renier Knizia. It was quite a battle, but Ron rose to be victorious.

Thanks Jim for hosting yet another great JimCon! See you all in the fall!

Origins Con Report

Check out the Conventions 2012 page to see the Origins Con Report!

Le Havre, Part II

Mike and I are back from Origins, so this week we finished the Le Havre game we started the week before Origins. At the end of the first half of the game we thought Owen would be a shoe in for the win. Things change.

It was obvious from the beginning that many of us had no clue what our overarching plans where for the game. I think most of us didn’t have a plan. Mike and I floundered with indecision and Ben waffled between doing thing one or doing thing two. (There’s a joke there someplace.) Owen lamented his decisions from the beginning of the game saying that next time he’ll try a different strategy. Heck, I’m impressed someone had a strategy.

Ben tried many of his schemes for cheating. I think we caught most of them. (He tried methods #7, #26, and #42 as found in his book, “Winning through Obscuration”.) As the game played out, Mike gained some momentum. I managed to stay one building ahead of Ben which caused him to have to wait for resources or at least choose something different. This really didn’t seem to hurt Ben much. Owen flat lined somewhere towards the end of the game. Spinning his wheels, he seemed to have lost all of the momentum built up during the first half of the game.

As the points were tallied, I was surprised to find that I did better than I thought. Ben won with 162 points; Mike came in second with the help of a last action build of a Luxury Liner for 38 points that gave him a total of 148. I was third with 136 and poor Owen came in last with 125. With my cry of “I’m not last!” still ringing in our ears, we adjourned until next time.

Chaos Steve